English grammar - Roger Berry 2012

B1.3 Formal and notional approaches to defining word classes
B1 Word classes
Section B Development

In the A sections there are two ways used to define word classes and to establish what class a word belongs to. The first relies on the meaning of the word and is sometimes called ’notional’. For example, if we say that a noun is the name of a person, place or thing, this is a notional definition; it tries to cover the meanings of nouns. The problem is that it does not do the job fully. What about nouns such as laughter, statement or hatred? We would have to extend the definition by adding notions such as ideas, feelings, actions etc. until it becomes useless. (And wait: aren’t actions to do with verbs?)

The point is, when we identify the word class of a word we do it on the basis of its grammar, not its meaning. In other words, we use a formal definition. For example, if I say to you I can see you’ve been durling lately, you know that durling is a verb because of its formal characteristics - the facts that it has the ending -ing and comes after -ve been.

The table below shows the main word classes of English and their notional and formal characteristics in the order they appear in this book. The formal features are divided into morphological (i.e. inflections) and structural (the words they go with). It will be noted that closed word classes (apart from primary auxiliaries) do not have inflections.

Table B1.3.1 The word classes of English

Fuller formal definitions (and problems associated with them) are given in the individual sections dealing with word classes.

Activity B1.1

Look at the following sentences and try to allocate each word to its word class.

1. When I think about it, we should have done better.

2. Melt the butter in a separate pan.

3. Double standards abound in the discussion on climate change.

How many words are from open and closed classes?